


Restore, Remember, Reveal

by umiyuki



Category: Kamen Rider Drive
Genre: Episode Fix-it, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:18:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3962434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umiyuki/pseuds/umiyuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiriko deserves to make her own choice, too, even if it must be made in the midst of pain.</p>
<p>(A rewrite of the last few minutes of episode 30.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restore, Remember, Reveal

**Author's Note:**

> This is for me and everyone else who found the end of episode 30 to be terribly written and horrifically OOC. Let's just say it happened this way instead.
> 
> (Yes, this would take more screen time than the canon version of the scene. In exchange, I would have cut the equally horrible and OOC scene between Kiriko and Yukari, as well as some of the fighting. Also, Chase would have gotten knocked out of his henshin before getting hit with all the locks and chains, because of reasons.)

"Kiriko," Chase says, "about Gou..."

"Yes?" Kiriko says, her face worried and hopeful at once. Chase feels a stinging sensation in his chest. What is he to say? What would make her happiest, cause her the least pain? Shinnosuke had said earlier that humans' hearts fall into chaos when their families are in trouble. Might it be better if he didn't tell her?

But that would mean deceiving her. Denying her of the truth relevant to her situation. Breaking her trust.

"I trust you," he had told Heart, so many times, and hadn't it hurt so badly when he'd found out that Heart had lied? Kiriko, on the other hand, has always told him the truth. Sometimes it had thrown him into confusion, but without that knowledge, how would he have ever been able to make his choice?

Kiriko deserves to make her own choice, too, even if it must be made in the midst of pain.

"He sought me out today," Chase says.

"You saw him?" says Kiriko, eyebrows raised in surprise. "What happened? Is he alright?"

"He attacked me, and I defended myself. I do not believe I caused him any lasting harm." Kiriko's eyes are flooded with sorrow, and Chase hesitates. He thinks he might understand now why Heart would have lied to him. But he still can't do the same to Kiriko. "I saw the skin behind his ear. He had a scar there, the same as all the rest left by 001."

"So... they've altered his memories? He's being controlled by 001?" She looks about to break into tears, but there's something else in her face now - relief? "Then that explains... I knew he'd never attack Tomari-san! Oh, Gou..."

Chase blinks at her. This isn't exactly the response he'd anticipated. "Does this information relieve you?"

Kiriko makes a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Not exactly," she says. "But it's better than thinking he would have done those things of his own will!" She looks up with tears in her eyes. "We can rescue him, can't we?"

"I believe so," Chase answers. "Even if his memories have been erased, or changed, I believe you can find a way to restore them, and him. You did so for me, after all."

Kiriko half-smiles at him, and then her eyes widen in realization. "Oh! That reminds me, I'm so sorry I didn't give you this sooner..." She reaches into her pocket, and pulls out Chase's shift car. "Rinna-san finished restoring this. She said you still might not be able to read all of the memory data on it, but..." She holds it out to him, and he takes it.

"Thank you," he says. "I will try it." There must be something else he should say to her, something to ease the pain of finding out about Gou. "I will help you to rescue your brother. And I believe Shinnosuke will, too. He cares for Gou very much."

Kiriko nods. "Thank you, Chase," she says softly. "I should tell Tomari-san, excuse me..." She gives him a slight bow before walking away towards Shinnosuke.

Chase looks down at the little shift car sitting quietly in the center of his palm. Only a few days have passed since Heart had given it back to him, pressing it into his trembling hand, closing his fingers around it, holding Chase's hand between his two larger ones for several moments before finally letting go. Chase can still feel them, how warm and gentle they'd been. And yet Heart had said only minutes earlier that he'd taken the shift car as a trophy after fighting and defeating Chase as Proto-Drive - something Chase hadn't entirely minded not remembering, knowing Heart's brutal fighting style. Will it have the memories of that fight stored in it? Will Chase remember it now, and the things that followed? 

Had Heart given it to him knowing it might make him remember all of that, and that the truth might change how Chase feels about him?

Chase turns the car over in his hand a couple of times. He thinks it ought to feel heavier, given the weight of the information that might be stored in it. Finally he lifts it to insert it into Break Gunner, and activates it to connect to the memory data.

It's a mess. Garbled, scrambled fragments jumbled together, too loud, too quiet, too bright, too dark. Confusing, overwhelming, painful. He drops to the ground clutching his head as he tries to process all the information into something that makes sense. _Ignore the corrupt data, read the parts that are whole._ He's panting from the effort of it when at last a piece surfaces that's easier to read--

_"--one of us!" A voice thick with emotion. "He's our comrade, and they were USING him! We have to take him back!" Heart's face above him, the warmth of his hand around Chase's._

_Brain is there too, leaning over him, his expression skeptical. "Are you sure we should? Won't he be a liability?"_

_"He won't," Heart says firmly. "I'll take responsibility for him." He lifts his head to look at someone else Chase can't (couldn't) see. "He'll be useful to us, I'll make sure of it."_

_The third Roidmude laughs in a voice Chase doesn't recognize, and steps into his view. A Cobra-type with 001 emblazoned on its chest. "Very well," it says. "Keep him. Wipe his memories, reprogram him if you can." 001 takes a few steps towards the door, and shifts into a human shape - a man, tall, gray-haired. He looks back for a moment and Chase sees his face as he says, "And eliminate him if he makes any trouble." He steps out the door and is gone._

_Brain sighs. "I suppose that's that, then," he says. "I still think it's foolishness, but since 001 agrees with you I'll do it."_

_"Thank you, Brain," replies Heart, sounding truly grateful. "You're the only one I can entrust this to. Thank you for helping me save him."_

_Brain fidgets, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his handkerchief and patting it to his face. "I'm pleased to be able to make myself useful to you, if nothing else." He tucks the handkerchief away again and reaches a hand out over Chase._

_"It won't hurt him, will it?" Heart asks._

_Brain scoffs. "What of it? He won't remember it later, and it's no less than he deserves after what he's done!"_

_"No," says Heart, clenching his hand more tightly around Chase's. "I've hurt him enough already. Don't let him feel any more pain."_

_Brain looks at Heart with disdain, but doesn't argue. "Fine," he grumbles, touching a fingertip to Chase's forehead, and everything goes dark._

"Chase!" comes Kiriko's voice. "Chase, are you alright?"

Chase drops Break Gunner, and it clatters against the cement tiles in the courtyard. He hears himself breathing heavily, feels his body shaking. He's on his knees, and Kiriko is beside him with her arm about his shoulders. He looks over at her and sees the tears running down her cheeks. "Kiriko," he says shakily. "You're crying..."

"So are you," says Kiriko, squeezing his shoulder. Chase reaches up and touches the skin around his eyes, finding it damp with tears. It's still strange to think that he even _can_ cry, having only done it a few times that he can remember. "You started screaming as soon as you activated the shift car, just like you did when you were remembering things before." Kiriko pauses a moment, caressing the side of his arm. "Were you remembering something painful?"

Chase isn't sure how to answer that. "...I don't know," he admits. "The data itself was corrupted. I felt overloaded just trying to read it." There had been garbled flashes of so many things, too difficult to process. "And the parts I _could_ read were confusing." Especially given the strange cacophany of experiencing both his feelings at the time of the memory, and those he felt as he reviewed it. "I might try it again, and see if I can learn anything more."

"You don't have to," says Kiriko. "Don't push yourself if it's going to hurt you!"

Chase tries to will his body to stop trembling so that she'll see he's alright. "But it may be useful information," he protests. "It might help you." The information he'd had about the scars left by 001 had helped earlier, after all. And then it occurs to him that he knows something even more useful now. "I saw his face!" he exclaims. "001, I saw his human form."

"You did?" Kiriko's eyes widen. "Can you tell us who he is?"

Chase thinks about it and then shakes his head. "I don't know his name," he says. "I didn't recognize him. But I know what he looks like."

"We can work with that," says Shinnosuke, crouching down on Chase's other side and putting a hand on his shoulder. "We're detectives, remember?"

Kiriko smiles. "He's right, we don't need a name if you can give us a face. Come back to the station with us, we'll figure it out together."

Once they're at the station, Kiriko shows Chase the software they use for creating facial composites from their own recollections, as well as from witnesses' descriptions. The process is hastened considerably when, at Kyu's suggestion, Chase tries interfacing with the computer directly and finds he can scan all of the component images at once. It takes him scarcely a minute to put the composite together.

"Here," he says to Kiriko once he's finished. "This is what 001's human form looks like."

Kiriko stares silently at the picture for a long moment. "Tomari-san," she says in a hushed, nervous tone. "You need to see this."

Shinnosuke gets up from his desk and comes around to the other side, falling into the same sort of silence as Kiriko when he sees the picture. "...Oh my god," he says at last. "It can't be--" He hurries back to his own computer and types something in. "Is this him, Chase?"

Chase gets up to look, and flinches back when he sees the picture. It's the same face exactly as the one from his memory - the same sleek, graying hair, the same sharp eyes behind the same narrow glasses. "Yes," he answers. "There's no mistake, that's 001." He looks up at Shinnosuke. "Who is he?"

Shinnosuke's face is grim. "The National Minister of Defense," he says. "Makage Soichi."


End file.
